Last week's Supreme Court verdict established urgently necessary guidelines on the applicability or not of the anti-terrorism law and asked parliament to make some essential changes. The sentence also offers much to reflect jurists, law students and civil society who interpret the rule of law as a rational, just and humanitarian dispensation.
The question before the court was whether the Anti-Terrorist Law (ATA) was being properly invoked.
The historical trial begins with a fairly complete description of terrorist movements and activities around the world from the year 2 BC until the 1990s, launched to ensure political, ideological or religious objectives. Terrorism students will find it useful. The court then refers with approval to Professor David Rapoport's theory of four waves of terrorist movements, to emphasize the point that the objectives of the terrorists have changed over time. An excerpt from the 21 Lessons for the 21st century by Yuval Noah Harari follows, which assures us that people can defeat terrorists if they do not overreact to the theater of terrorism and offer a balanced response.
While discussing the various interpretations of the ATA by different courts and their application in cases that do not qualify as terrorism, the court recalls a ruling from the Lahore High Court of Judge Asif Saeed Khosa that addresses the same issue. An analysis of 40 cases decided by the Supreme Court between 1998 and 2018 shows that these cases were not within the revised definition of terrorism, but were all treated as cases of terrorist acts or terrorism on the basis of presumption and speculation about The effect of the relevant effects. behavior. These cases, decided at the level of the superior court, offer a measure of the incorrect application of the ATA that the police officers who wrote the charges could consider to be an abuse of the law.
The ruling promises a reduction in the misuse of the ATA by a predatory executive.
The conclusion and direction of the court that all actions must be judged by the objective defined in the ATA: that an action, however serious, appalling or horrific, cannot be classified as terrorism if it does not commit to the design and purpose mentioned in the the law itself, and that actions taken to foster personal enmity or private revenge cannot be described as terrorism, should avoid the improper application of the ATA.
The court has suggested that the definition of terrorism in the ATA be made simpler and more succinct along with a change in the preamble and the elimination of the Third List of crimes that are not linked to terrorism.
Civil society should welcome this trial, as it promises a reduction in the misuse of the ATA by a predatory executive who has used this law to scare people into submission and, often, to suppress dissent. and punish citizens for making their rights heard. The ATA has been used against lawyers, students and union leaders for demanding their rights. The state is so fond of the ATA that it was extended to Gilgit-Baltistan before benign laws were introduced there, and its victims included Attabad hero Baba Jan, leading lawyers and human rights activists. It will not be an exaggeration to say that, in the hands of irresponsible authorities, the ATA can become an instrument to spread fear among people.
Unfortunately, Pakistan has an unenviable record of the executive's insatiable desire to nibble in due process in order to deny people their basic rights and freedoms. The history of the state's love for brutal punishment and its tendency to address serious crime by compromising due process makes reading painful.
In the first decade of Independence, the preventive detention laws were revived, against which the Muslim League had carried out a civil disobedience movement in Punjab, and the state began to treat the constitution, law and civil liberties with Sassy contempt. The process was complicated by the establishment of military regimes that ipso facto denied constitutionalism, the rule of law and basic freedoms.
Since 1974, when the Law on the Suppression of Terrorist Activities (Special Courts) was executed until 2011, when the monstrosity called Actions in aid of the Civil Power Regulations was issued, the state has been trying to control serious crimes and terrorism through cutting due process and increasing detention without trial for much longer periods (and without any judicial review) than is contemplated in Article 10 of the Constitution. No one can claim that these measures have been successful.
The fallacy that underlies the constant disregard for the rule of law, due process and common sense is the belief that serious crime, including terrorism, can be eliminated by short-circuiting the trial process and prescribing tougher punishments. . This view has proven to be wrong throughout the world for the past two centuries and more, and also in Pakistan.
The search for dissuasive punishments by the state and its fondness for severe laws, the level of impunity of law enforcement personnel and disregard for the requirements of a fair trial are driving people away from what has become the justice system The fact that only the poor are hanged in Pakistan or that no perpetrator of murderous attacks against the Shiite Hazara has been punished has undermined respect for the justice system, which is also weakened every time a citizen is a victim of forced disappearance or a woman is killed to save the primitive concept of honor of a man. The number of people who prefer the Jirga system to the judicial process seems to have increased over the years, and now they are also visible in the halls of power.
The world has learned that the majesty of the law is not established by reducing due process and raising the scale of punishment; It is established by the social improvement of people, guarantees of employment and fair wages, and by convincing people that no one can avoid paying for breaking the law. Instead of putting people at risk under bad laws, the executive must make vigilance and prosecution efficient and honest. Together with ATA, all other laws that cut due process and prescribe inhuman punishments must be reviewed.
Posted in Dawn, November 7, 2019
Source: https://www.dawn.com/news/1515425/misuse-of-antiterrorism-law